Over the next two years, University of California students can
expect pressing issues such as fee increases and admissions
accessibility to come before the Board of Regents.
As student regent, UCLA graduate student Maria Ledesma will be
one of the only voices representing the concerns of the more than
200,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students in the
UC system.
The student regent and the student regent-designate are the only
student voices on the board, the UC’s most powerful governing
body. There are a total of 26 regents, 18 of whom are appointed by
the governor.
The regents approved Ledesma’s appointment July 20, and
her term as student regent will begin July 1, 2006. This year she
will serve as the student regent-designate, who can participate in
all deliberations of the board but cannot vote.
“Ideally I think that more student voice is always
better,” Ledesma said. But at least having two student
regents on the board, even if only one has voting power, helps to
create continuity in student input, she said.
Ledesma will serve on the Finance, Educational Policy, and
Grounds and Buildings Committees. She specifically chose the
Finance Committee so she can voice her input on future fee
increases, which are extremely likely to come before the regents
before her term is up.
Regents are expected to raise fees again next year in agreement
with their May 2004 compact with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Since the position’s creation in 1975, Ledesma is the 10th
UCLA student to hold the position, said Trey Davis, a spokesperson
for the UC Office of the President.
Regent Norman Pattiz, who headed the selection committee,
presented Ledesma to the Board of Regents at their July meeting.
She was chosen from a total of 79 applicants representing all nine
UC campuses, Pattiz said.
Ledesma is the first Latina to serve as student regent in the
history of the position, Pattiz said.
Ledesma considers this a great honor, because “both people
I know and people I don’t know have worked very hard for me
to be here,” she said.
She became interested in the position through the UC’s
Board of Admissions and Relations With Schools, where she served as
the graduate student representative last year. Through the board,
she became interested in matters of educational policy, such as the
UC’s recent decision to withdraw from the National Merit
Scholarship Program.
Having taken part in many of the Board’s discussions on
the issue, Ledesma said she supports the UC’s withdrawal
because it is “in sync with the UC’s role of
comprehensive review” in admissions.
“One of the things that continues to interest me is the
challenge that the university will continue to face in the
admission of historically underrepresented groups,” Ledesma
said.
The system needs to be held responsible for “making sure
that all qualified students have a place at the university,”
she said.
Ledesma’s interest in admissions policy comes not just
from her own experiences, as a first-generation college student,
but also through her own course of study.
Ledesma is currently pursuing a doctorate at the UCLA Graduate
School of Education and Information Studies, where her research
focuses on the admission of historically underrepresented students
into highly selective schools.
Growing up in Oakland, California, Ledesma and her three
siblings have all attended UC Berkeley.
Ledesma earned a master’s degree in education from Harvard
University in 1999.
Ledesma has also worked as an outreach coordinator for the Early
Academic Outreach Program and read admissions applications for UC
Berkeley. In the future, she is interested in both teaching and
research in higher education, and in educational policy.
One highly controversial agenda item that will continue to brew
during her term will be the UC’s management bids for U.S.
Department of Energy nuclear laboratories, Ledesma said.
She also expressed interest in admissions-related issues that
are likely to come before the regents during her term, such as the
role of comprehensive review and the weight given to honors-level
high school coursework in the admissions process.